


strange fits of passion i have known

by Hinterlands



Series: they call me the wanderer [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, this gets vaguely smutty towards the middle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 02:52:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5317736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinterlands/pseuds/Hinterlands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s no stark beauty to be found in a world bristling with burned-out shells of stumps and so many hungry mouths eager to rend them to pieces; fact. But it’s the world that brought her to Piper, she thinks, so, just maybe, it can be forgiven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	strange fits of passion i have known

There’s a certain type of beauty to be found in the Commonwealth’s pitted soil and crumpled collegiate spires; _yeah, right._ Wastelanders wax rhapsodical about the beauty of a world gutted because it’s the only thing they’ve ever known. There’s no beauty to be found when you’re trapped between a dead oak, bark patchy with black rot, and the business end of a Deathclaw’s forepaws, or in a circle of skulls sitting artfully in the center of a Mirelurk’s nest.

The closest thing to beautiful Griffin’s seen since she stumbled from her cryo-pod, wet with icemelt, is Diamond City; something about the way those fairy lights flicker every time there’s a surge in the current remind her of trotting down snow-slick cement in the cool, dusky light of evening, every neighbor’s holiday display bolder and bigger than the last. One big passive-aggressive circlejerk, complete with plump, red-cheeked, smiling Santas, reindeer frolicking around their feet, the whole scene lit more green than red, half-lives winking away between the cycling of strung-up Christmas lights.

 _Circlejerk._ That’s a good word for it. The city’s just a few dozen mouths trying to hawk and clamor louder than the rest, but at least it’s honest about it. That’s the upshot to a world singed to ashes; there’s nowhere for cruel intentions to hide.

And, of course, there’s Piper; deep down, Griffin knows that’s the clincher. Diamond City is beautiful because Piper clings to it, calls it home, tries to save every ramshackle soot-smeared shack from inward collapse with stacks of editions people only leave on benches to wilt in the rain. Diamond City is beautiful because Piper is beautiful, because Piper lights the streets with indomitable determination, peppers the ground with snowdrifts of exposés, never walks anywhere without a crinkled yellow notepad and a scavenged stick of graphite, always scrounging for the next danger waiting to befall them.

And there’s the thick hair, midnight-slippery between the fingers when Griffin is permitted to comb it through for burrs and bits of bone; the elegant arches of her fingers, long and clever, as masterful on the trigger as they are on the keys of a typewriter; full lips shaped perfectly for knowing smiles, neat rows of teeth that crack syllables like shards of ice, hazel eyes always alight with laughter. A voice not made for radio, but smooth enough to make the top of her throat itch.

(Did Nate make her feel this way? Like the world held more light by virtue of his standing in it? Would she be able to sigh over the verdant dustbowl chaos of a radiation storm if he were crouched and sheltering in the corrugated tin shack beside her instead? There’s a hollow space yawning in the pit of her stomach that thinks not. Nate’s mouth never curved the way Piper’s does when he called her name, never lit her ribs with such desperate affection.)

The body beneath those wine-red road leathers and layers of scarves and gloves is a landscape she’ll never tire of mapping out beneath her hands, either; lean enough that she can cup the curve of Piper’s ribcage between both calloused palms, but sinuous and wiry, all the sleek strength of a Commonwealth cat coiled down within her. Breasts a perfect handful each, every swipe of the thumb providing new texture, new contrast, silky areola and pebbled skin, nipples always quick to stiffen under her careless attentions; all shyness gone when the lights were doused, back arched and taut as a bowstring, lips fallen open in a breathy sigh. Griffin knows the hills and valleys of her body well enough to draw maps between them in the dark (and it had to be dark, in most places, yet-unfinished settlements providing a bed and a roof but no protection from any ghouls attracted by their lights), across the swell of a hip, down the taut skin of Piper’s stomach. She can picture the way pink lips pout open well enough when her fingertips brush the sopping curls at the junction of Piper’s thighs, as the moan in her throat rises to a sobbing crescendo.

Piper always has an answer; it’s nice to know that Griffin herself is the one to put her at a loss, those shapely legs thrown over her shoulders, those long fingers clutching at the threadbare blankets as she simply stutters _Blue, Blue, Blue,_ sings her new, christened name like a hymn to Atom. Morning has never dawned brighter than it does when Piper’s curled up beside her, hair mussed and skin marred with bruises shaped to her teeth, breathing slow and easy.

There’s no stark beauty to be found in a world bristling with burned-out shells of stumps and so many hungry mouths eager to rend them to pieces; fact. But it’s the world that brought her to Piper, she thinks, so, just maybe, it can be forgiven.  

**Author's Note:**

> Another sixty-minute exercise about the Commonwealth's deadliest jazz duo, and not likely to be the last. If you have any prompts for these two, feel free to share- I'm always short on inspiration, but never on enthusiasm.


End file.
